Expert Feature

Translating Tracked Changes

What Is the Purpose of the "Track Changes" Feature?

This feature allows you to include tracked changes from your Word documents in your translation process. In this way, the translator can see which passages have been added or deleted in the source document. A tooltip even shows who made these changes and when. Moreover, any comments inserted while tracking changes in Word can be read and translated.

How and Where Can I Use This Feature?

The activation of this feature is helpful in many scenarios. For example, consider medical texts, for which statutory requirements need to be complied with and seamless traceability is mandatory, or international contract documents, whose parties need to be precisely informed about any changes to the drafts.

To use this feature, you might want to set up a special document settings template for this purpose (System Settings > Document Settings > Word 2007-2016). Click "Advanced Settings" to access the "Track Changes" options.

For example, you can activate the feature for the source text only. This is useful if the translator needs to see and understand which changes have been made (e.g. in the course of a document update), in order to be able to duly apply them to the target text. You can also activate the feature for the target text. In this way, the translator can apply the tracked changes of the source text to the target text as they are. In both cases, the translator can translate the comments inserted while tracking changes in MS Word.

If the feature has been activated in your document settings template and you have checked in a DOCX file, the translator will be able to use the respective icons and keyboard shortcuts in crossDesk. For example, this enables him to work with change tracking in the Target Editor in the same way as in MS Word:

Change tracking can take place automatically as soon as target text is added or deleted.

Target-language text can be systematically marked as deleted or inserted.

The tracked changes can be hidden so that crossDesk only displays the final version of the texts.

The translator can navigate through all paragraphs containing tracked changes.

What Do I Need to Pay Attention to When Using This Feature?

If the option is not activated, all tracked changes from DOCX documents will be accepted by Across during check-in and will thus no longer be visible to the translator. If the option is activated, sentence splitting of your documents and the use of placeables will automatically be deactivated. When saving translation units from paragraphs with tracked changes to your Translation memory, all changes will be accepted. Thus, your Translation memory will contain the final version of the translation, without any information on the tracked changes.

In crossWeb, the tracked changes can be made visible for the source text. However, the browser-based client does not allow their application to the target text.

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